Lords Of Thunder, 1995 Hudson Soft/Eleven (20 From Sega/Mega CD #16)
4Holy crap, is this the best shoot-em-up soundtrack! Heavy metal tunes scream in the background as you make your way through this horizontally scrolling shooter originally released for the Turbo Duo (and is itself a follow up to the game GATE OF THUNDER). You are a flying knight with legendary armor you can gear up in before taking on each stage, and there are 4 armors: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water-- each with a different kind of firepower. And thank God you can hold down the button for rapid-fire! Enemies tend to pop up from all over the place, so it's good to constantly bathe the screen with your weapon and take out any enemy popping up from wherever. Not only do you get to choose which armor to put on before starting a stage (and you get to choose which of the first 6 stages to play next), but you also get to visit a shop run by your main squeeze (wife/gf, not sure which) and purchase a life increase for your life meter, stronger firepower, more special attacks (up to 3 and you use the B button to execute them), a shield that allows a certain number of enemy hits to not harm you, an elixir that refills your life when you die (and you only get one life in this game!), and an extra continue (you get 4 to start with). The difficulty isn't overbearing but it does get tough later in the game.. repeated playing to learn where enemies pop up from and how to deal with them is highly beneficial, as is knowing which armor works best on which stages (the Fire Armor works well in most). Also, when your knight comes close to an enemy, he will use a sword for quick slashing-- this is MUCH more powerful than your firepower and is SUPER useful against the bosses! Lean when the boss will shoot and when they won't so you can get in close and help bring the battle to a quick end. Using the sword can also take out big enemies to get more weapon power up orbs (or the rare life up orbs), as well as lots of crystals which you use as currency for the shop. Solid shoot-em-up for the Sega CD, with a hell of a soundtrack. See you soon for game #15!